ACADEMT OF S CIEN CES.] BIOGRAPHY. 75 



of his conclusions — "Statistics and Sociology" and "Statistics and Economics" — immediately 

 won a place as the authoritative works on the subject, and have been largely used as text- 

 books throughout this country. 



The characteristics of Prof. Mayo-Smith as an economist stood him in good stead as a 

 statistician. His sobriety of judgment led him to point out the limitations of the statistical 

 method as well as the dangers which encompassed the subject; and his lucidity of thought and 

 expression enabled him to invest with interest what to the average man seemed the driest 

 part of the "dismal science." As a scientific statistician he was without a peer in America 

 and his reputation attracted not a few students to the School of Political Science. 



This leads us naturally to consider him in the next place as a teacher. It is rare to find 

 a man who is at once a creative scholar and a successful undergraduate teacher. Prof. Mayo- 

 Smith combined these characteristics. From the very outset he was occupied in teaching 

 economics to undergraduates, and although the conditions of those early years, almost a half 

 century ago, compelled him to emphasize the needs of a broader university development he 

 retained to the last his warm interest in the college and its undergraduates. The instruction 

 of the juniors remained in whole or in part in his hands, and his senior course was always with 

 one exception the most popular of all the classes in history and political science and among 

 the three or four largest electives in the whole institution. Numerous are the graduates of the 

 college who continued with Mm the pleasant associations and the friendships formed during 

 their undergraduate life. As a college instructor he was unusually conscientious, eminently 

 fair, and uniformly courteous. 



As a university lecturer, dealing primarily with graduates, he was no less successful. The 

 interest which he instilled into his auditors in his lectures and especially in his seminar may be 

 recognized from the fact that many of his former students are now filling professorial chairs, 

 while others are occupying positions of dignity in the administrative services of State and 

 Nation. The successful building up of the department was in no small measure due to his 

 own rare modesty, to the utter absence of any attempt to enhance his own reputation by 

 belittling that of his colleagues, and to his thoroughly scientific spirit of encouraging his sub- 

 ordinates to untrammeled and independent exertion. 



Finally we must speak of him as a citizen and a man. He was not one of those who, amid 

 the engrossing cares and exactions of a professional and scholastic career, forget that devotion 

 to science does not excuse one from the equally high obligations of good citizenship. He was 

 always warmly interested in the fight for good government. He thoroughly believed in the 

 practicability of lending a hand to the unfortunate, and was so much attracted by the work of 

 the University Settlement that he lived there at various periods in his career as a resident. He 

 was so completely in sympathy with the principles of the Charity Organization Society that he 

 served for many years as member of its council and acted until the last as the head of one of 

 its district committees, sparing neither time not effort in his endeavor to make it a success. 



Amid all these duties, both in and out of the university, he found leisure for not a little 

 social intercourse. His friends outside the academic sphere were many and warm. What 

 attracted them were the same qualities that won for him so much recognition in college circles. 

 His intellectual honesty, his receptiveness, his unfailing courtesy and kindliness, his balance of 

 mind and his rare good judgment all conspired to secure for him an influence which was equalled 

 by but few in the university. 



Prof. Mayo-Smith married in June, 1884, Mabel Ford, of Brooklyn, the sister of Paul 

 Leicester Ford and Worthington C. Ford. They had two sons and two daughters. His son 

 Richmond is a captain now in service in France and his daughter Lucie is the wife of Prof. 

 U. B. Phillips, of Michigan University. His brother is Prof. Henry Preserved Smith of Union 

 Theological Seminary. 



Prof. Richmond Mayo-Smith was a charter member of the University Club in New York, 

 being one of the first hundred asked to join. He was also a member of the Century Association 

 and of the D. K. E. He was a vestryman of Christ Church and was one of the original members 

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